Sudan is facing a famine that could become the deadliest since Ethiopia in the early 1980s, US officials have warned, as both sides in the civil war are accused of using food access as a weapon. The UN humanitarian appeal has received only 16% of the funds needed, with global attention focused elsewhere.
El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has been under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for two months. The UN Security Council adopted a UK-drafted resolution demanding an end to the siege, but fighting escalated on Friday. The RSF, recruited from Janjaweed militias involved in the Darfur genocide, has been accused of looting humanitarian warehouses and destroying food supplies.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have closed the Adré border crossing from Chad, the main aid route into Darfur. USAID chief Samantha Power said the SAF could open it “with a stroke of the pen”. She added that obstruction, not food shortages, is driving starvation in Sudan.
The US announced $315m in new humanitarian assistance, but noted that hardly any aid is reaching isolated populations. Samantha Power warned that the crisis is “comparable to and potentially worse” than Somalia’s 2011 famine, which killed 250,000 people. A worst-case scenario could see 2.5 million deaths in Darfur and Kordofan by September.
Despite the humanitarian catastrophe, both sides continue to receive weapons: the SAF from Russia and Iran, and the RSF from the UAE, a US ally. US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged the world to “wake up” to the disaster.
